The Time Embezzler
by Unfortunately Freckled
Summary: Because of a horde of random events, Voldemort has been delayed four years from attacking Harry.Sirius has more incentive to break free from Azkaban to save him...


**The Time Embezzler **

**Chapter one: The Not So Pliable Twig**

**Disclaimer: **Owning Harry Potter is like owning a million gallons of toothpaste…I simply do not. And that friends is a simile because it has 'like' in it. Score one literary device for me

**Author's note**: Hallo! I'm quite glad you chose my story for your daytime or nighttime entertainment. On your journey to the plot, you'll most likely encounter thousands of spelling mistakes, nine-hundred and six grammar screw-ups, and clipped off sentences that I got lazy and didn't finish typing (though I'm hoping my attention span will sustain me enough to not be so mean as to do that-.-; ). If you like The Time Embezzler feel free to answer your wild urges and review. –ButIf you feel that it is in your condescending mannerism to criticize my work then email your censures to I'm trying to read _Julius Caesar_, study ancient Indian and Chinese culture, learn how to plot this crazy z-coordinate and write all at the same time, though my multi-tasking skills are below absolute zero. Have fun deciphering this, kiddies! Oh, and the tab button and I are having a few disputes. Please forgive it, it is indeed illiterate. Yay, the grandmaster spell checker said that that last sentence needed a comma modification. I hope all of you will please take the hint that spelling and grammar make me puke a lot, or just like you know, not do them. Be my friend and beta read, everybody's doing it!

Oh um, guys…Just thought I'd say screw Webster…I'm making up my own words sometimes. Like tinkerage. That really isn't a word. It isn't even close. But it sure sounds fun and sort of rolls off the tongue. Good ol' spell checker, always here to remind me…telling me how wonderfully wrong I am with those putrid red squiggly lines. I desperately hate them :)

* * *

Doris Field could proudly declare she had aged quite well. At eighty-five, she could still hear a pen drop while her radio blared with the oldies and read the tiniest print on the church bulletins without the use of her mammoth spectacles. She strolled without a walker with only a slight limp to slow her down and even could jog lightly when the challenge emerged. These miraculous qualities un-tainted by time allowed her to step up to her town title proudly: the busy body. Otherwise known as Nosey Doris. Through the many times she'd combed the streets for gossip and eased dropped to hear about Ms. Who and Mr. What's affair, it never crossed her mind that this title would bring about her silent perplexing death. It had been the juiciest bulk of gossip ever to swim through Grodic's Hollow and it was just a shame she wasn't alive to enjoy it. 

That cloudy Halloween day had produced a starless lavender night and Nosey Doris found herself in the last hour of her life taking out the trash. Adorned in her flowery bathrobe and fluffy pink house slippers, she was securing the flimsy lids when she heard a noise that most seniors could never hear in their age; a small 'pop' like the un-lodging of a cork off a champagne bottle and the swish of fabric. Nosey Doris, knowing full well that midnight was an odd time for anyone to be out (she'd carelessly forgotten about taking out the trash earlier), concluded quite quickly with her busy body instincts to pursue the obscure noise. After all, her and her friends had sucked the last dose of rumors dry and wouldn't they be so delighted when she came back to them with a whole new subject entirely.

_'Just hope its not some cat,'_ she thought, following in the direction the sound had echoed. At best, she hoped to find two secret lovers, presumably one being her worst nemesis Mrs. Norton, who had won the toaster she had desired in the grocery store drawing. The typically green woods, which were planted between her house and the next, generally were thought of as beautiful. Through her kitchen window she could see them rippling in the wind and the leaves rocking slowly as they fell to the forest floor. Tonight however, the wind made the wiry branches furl in and out, like human hands twisting in agony and the leaves rattle about sounding like little rats that were scurrying the ground for food._ This_, she thought rather angrily as a branch tore at her nightdress_, had better be one good bit of gossip._

"Pettigrew—If you have deceived me—If you have dared as to try to ruse the dark lord—" A voice, as human as a snake, shrilled from behind a veil of trees. This man (or so she assumed) had the voice that seemed to slither and glide like a serpent; its pink tongue protruding and sniffing for the slightest quake in a word. Inclined by her growing curiosity, she stepped forward and hid behind a large Birchwood, though she was a bit too nervous to peer around the bark and stare at the figure.

_' He must be a foreigner with that voice. How the more better! Please, reveal your secret lover Mr. Foreigner.'_ She thought, bobbling in excitement.

"M-My lord—I would never d-do such an awful, horrendous t-thing."

The other voice was mousy and quivered slightly. It almost seemed sad, and rumbled with the pathetic waves of someone who lived in fear. Deeply pondering, she wondered why two grown men would be out in the middle of the night. Could it be they were thieves? _'They very well could be,'_ she answered in her mind. _'A ring of bandits? Maybe the scared one stole something from the other one.' _Her mind ticked a bit further. _" I thought the crime rate here was better then anywhere else! Well, those bloody statistics are always off. They could be anything, really; thieves or murderers or maybe even…" _

Doris's eyes bulged as an all to hasty realization dawned upon her. She had to fight to suppress her urge to giggle.

'_…Lovers.'_  
"You've pondered on it before. Ah, do not forget, Wormtail. My eyes easily pierce your forged walls of your inner sanctuary. You hide nothing, not even your carelessly hidden passion for a certain Potter woman."

'_Potter…That name sounds so very familiar, and what's this talk of a woman? I thought these two played for the _other _team.'_ She giggled behind her hand. This situation, unfolding like a book with a stern spine, was becoming more heated and complex as the seconds ticked by. The only way she would know who these strange men were was to listen in a little bit more. Besides, she could never resist a fresh scoop.

" M-My lord, please! I admit there is a small flame—"

" A small flame?" Doris could almost feel each word as it hummed with sarcasm in its serpentine likeness. "A small flame that has ignited into a deadly fire. One that is kindling so bright that it obscures your friendship with her husband. One that has led you to me in spite."

The mousy boy began protesting loudly. "No! Never! I'm here to show gratitude for youshowing me the way of the world and the dark—"

"Oh, Wormtail," the cryptic man scolded. "Tarnishing the dark lord with these puerile lies will not help you at all. Though I disgrace this, I cannot blame you. You, like the rest of the other Death Eaters, are average human wizards with average human intelligence. When you learn to rise above your humanity then you will truly follow me, blindly and humbly."

_'This man is smart or either on drugs.'_ Doris thought suddenly. '_Though he seems off his rocker either way. Wizards? What rubbish; probably a metaphor from a book of some kind. The library has nothing better to do then to sit on their right little rumps and give out gibberish books about wizards and such."_

"My lord?"

"_Yes?_"

"A-Are you to murder them all?"

Nosey Doris felt a chill streak down her back as the other began to laugh, a maniacal snicker embedded with malice and laced with ice. She could almost feel his smirk.

"What good are they to me alive?"

'_They're plotting to kill!' _

Before she could control herself, she peered around the tree at the two silhouettes barely outlined by the dark. They were almost completely swallowed by the night in their black cloaks, though their diverse body shapes stood out. One was rather short and plump, shaped like a large round cherry. The other however was tall, lean, and carried himself almost royally compared to the cowering man next to him. The meek voice, she guessed, belonged to the chubbier one.  
"Master please!" The plump one cried. "Please spare her a-at least. She was always s-so kind to _me."_

"How kind will she be when she looks into my eyes and knows you've betrayed her and her family?" Even though their backs were turned to her, Doris had a strong hunch that the man was leering.  
"Master p-"

"_Silence Wormtail_." The taller man hissed venomously, sounding even more like a snake then before. " Do you think your groveling will waver me? I only put up with it because you hold the key to the Potters. Now perform the task you were chosen to do before I become infuriated with the ill time you have wasted pleading."

'_Task?'_ Doris wondered. '_Of course! They're going to kill someone! Oh my lord, what do I do?'_ Her mind began to race with flashes of frantic thoughts. _'Call the police? Would they make it in time? Will I be able to sneak away without making any noise? What should I do? Oh God what should I do?' _

But, as all these questions piled in her brain an undistinguishable emotion rose somewhere in her chest. It was similar to the feeling that she got right before she received a bit of gossip; the emotion that held her breath as she figured out another's secret. Though this time the sensation felt amplified to a dangerous height. It was scuttling through her very blood, keeping her still, her ragged breath calm and her hands tightly clutched on the bark of the tree as if it was trying to lead her away. Though she didn't comprehend it, greed kept her planted firmly like a statue behind that Birchwood. The greed to know, to understand overwhelmed everything in Doris's mind to the hazardous point of completely blanking out her empathy for the soon to be victims.

Lord Voldemort was known to bring out the very worst in people.

After a long apprehensive silence, the chubby one seemed to nod and mutter so quietly the words would've been whisked away by the slight breeze if Doris hadn't of been leaning forward eagerly to hear.

"Yes, fine my lord." He straightened up as if trying to look dignified but failing miserably. He only seemed more frail and small then the dominant one to his right. He cleared his throat and chanted with an eerily calm voice that seemed just too creepy for Doris's tastes.

"_The Potters may be found at number 7 Grodic's Hollow, Lancashire. The little brick behind the forest."_

Grodic's Hollow had never heard such a vile, cruel laugh like the one that had echoed mockingly through the trees that night. Doris wasn't sure if it was chilly wind or that high-pitched cackling that made the fine hairs on her neck stand on end. The one thing she knew above all else at that moment was that man with the sly snake voice was someone she didn't care to meet.

"M-My Lord." The chubby man whispered; he sounded as if a tennis ball was lodged in his throat clearly on the verge of tears. "You h-have three minutes to break the wards."

"Of course," hissed the serpentine like man, "that'd be Dumbledore's little tinkerage. Likes that number three doesn't he? Blasted old fool…He'll find the rubble of their house in the morning and the baby pale with _death_. "

Doris had never heard words spoken with such icy abhorrence as the man spoke then. Not even the many times she'd been cussed out for snooping had the words been fastened with such an awful malice. They had been angry of course—more then angry—but they didn't _hate _her.

"Please master!" Wailed the chubby man desperately. " Have mercy on Lil-"

"Leave Wormtail." Murmured the master dangerously.

"Master-"

"_Leave."_

There was a soft sob and then a pop. Doris blinked and rubbed her eyes. The man was just there and then—He wasn't. It had looked as if the very air had enveloped him. The breeze lightly tousled the trees as Doris stood there, shaking, wondering if her courage had left her as she felt her sanity had.

"So," The master whispered beneath his breath. "It has come to this: murdering a baby to preserve all that I have toiled for. Prophecies…" He sighed, " so blatant and yet so vague. I will walk into this house with only half?" The man shook his confident head. "What am I thinking? Second-guessing myself? What will that prove only to worry me and the Dark Lord never worries, he only ponders."

The man began to stalk out of the forest with a sly, self-assured strut that made her panic. If she was to do something productive, it was now. Sucking in a deep un-reassuring breath, she slipped away from the protective tree and tiptoed in the direction of her house.

That's when it happened.

It was so small, yet so life pivoting. So simple, so seemingly futile but it changed the lives of millions. It's funny how something as plain as a twig that had dropped off during a drought would bring about the Dark Lord's demise, four years after it should've.

Perhaps if the twig had been just a _bit_ more flexible, the Dark Lord would've made it all the short way to the Potter's house to commit his vile task, with two minutes left to spare. Sadly, in this thread of time, it wasn't so.

Doris's toe crunched the twig in two, and in the cryptic forest silence, it echoed forbiddingly through the trees. Her back straightened and face tightened as she prepared to run for it, hoping that her limp and the man wouldn't catch up to her. But as she prepared to bale, a sudden small pop sounded from behind her.

"Well well, who do we have here running about and listening to things they ought to not." The serpentine voice hissed. "Have you no manners muggle?"

Doris spun on her heels and almost swallowed her tongue. The man in front of her towered ominously over her wearing a dark cloak that conflicted with his skeleton white skin. This was hardly the oddest thing about him though. His hood didn't quite conceal two glinting red eyes that had long thin pupils like a snake. Doris instantaneously thought he was a demon or a lunatic.

"What ever is the matter muggle? Not what you were expecting?" He leered with his lipless mouth.

"I-I…I am not a moogle or whatever you just said." Doris seemed to have found her voice, which had been cowering away in her gut until late. She stood her ground like any other anal-retentive eighty-five year old would. "My name is Doris Field. I've heard every word you've just said and I plan to alert the authorities, promptly."

"Are you?" The man's voice slithered with amusement. "Then you better rush off to fetch them then." His thin bony fingers slid into his pocket fingering something. Doris just _knew_ it was a gun.

"Y-You're going to kill me the minute I turn around aren't you?"

"No of course not." He chuckled malevolently, his aberrant eyes glinting. "I'm going to kill you right now."

He drew his hand out of his pocket fluently and pointed an elongated glossy stick at her sweating temple. She whimpered at the strange movement and covered her face.

"Wh-What?" She asked as she peaked at his weapon of choice. "A stick? Just what do you think you can do to me with a stick? Plug my bloody eyes out?"

"I do not have time for you. I have already wasted a valuable minute on this dilly dallying." The nonchalant man's very aura seemed to transform into something ancient as he began to wave his lustrous stick. Doris, who already found chill bumps up and down her arms, took this as an opportunity to split. She spun and sprinted behind a tree as a light as green as a stoplight exploded from the man. The Birchwood she had been standing behind earlier incinerated in bright green flames that dazzled the murky woods. The flames consumed the tree avidly, climbing swiftly up the trunk and unto the leaves that didn't even seem green next to the luster of this foreign color. Then suddenly, like someone had blown it all out, the blaze stopped and ashes sailed to a placid pile on the scorched grass. Doris gazed in awe.

"Damn it muggle!" The man swore loudly. "I have no time for this! I have one minute left. Come out this instant!"

Doris, fearing the crazed note in his voice, began weaving in and out of trees swiftly. His red eyes must've caught her movements for there were tiny explosions flaring up everywhere behind her, cremating trees. An eerie green glow enveloped the clearing giving it a dream like quality. A particular outburst decimated the tree right behind her and she looked back suddenly. It was just enough however for her to run smack into a tree. She plunged to the ground, her back cracking sickeningly against the forest floor. For a moment she didn't know who or where she was but it all flickered back when two crimson eyes glowered down at her. All she could see or focus on were the flashing orbs, laced with an unspeakable anger. Anything else in the world didn't exist.

"You brainless muggle, you have no idea what you have done tonight! Because of you my three minutes to penetrate the Potter's wards are up and now I must wait for another full moon. Do you know how long this night was planned? No, of course not. And for your ignorance you will die and never be found."

She didn't comprehend what was happening as it proceeded. There was a flick of his wand. There was a green light. There was a rush of her blood. There was darkness.

Lord Voldemort shrieked in fury as he watched the muggle's eyes loose their life; the familiar look they took on like a glass ball with still waters inside.

"I must have patience." He hissed to himself, retaining his anger for a later date or for an unfortunate Death Eater. "This will come to pass. The baby will die, whether it is now, a month, or a year. I did not climb to where I am now with sheer luck. No, with patience this will come to pass."

He flicked his wand twice and Doris's body twitched. It began to melt like butter in the sun as her face contorted and twisted along with every other part of her. It looked as if it was molding in on itself until it took on a small compact form; a rock. It was burgundy and just on the side there was a flower that was etched into the very mass. It was the exact shape that was imprinted on her nightdress. His spider-leg like white fingers picked it up and then tossed it far into the abyssal dark forest.

He then bewitched the remnants of the scorched trees to become flowers, which sprouted to life in seconds. He smiled at his handy work.

"They will never know I was here and I shall creep up on them, like a time embezzler."

And with a pop he was gone.

* * *

Sirius Black was a dreadfully prideful man. Though he was known for his pithy statements and rare presentations of sensitivity, when he was contested on a subject he _believed_ he knew, there would be no peace until he proved himself right. As James had once affectionately put it, he could prove the bloody earth was a square and that all the genius explorers that knew _a little bit_ about what they were talking about were drug-crazed zombies. That's why after only four days of incessant nagging and obnoxious scowls from Black, he was re-instated as the Potter's official secret keeper. 

He had not felt safe about the change in the first place. It wasn't like Peter was an unreliable person and not to be trusted, but more as if Sirius wanted the responsibility and honor the name secret keeper instilled. After all, it was his best friends and godson's life at stake. He wanted their trust with him, even if that meant he had to hide himself too. He believed it was his place to hold the burden. There was one condition however, if he came down with an illness or became weak enough for his life to be at risk if a Death Eater found him, he would have to hand the job to Peter, only if temporally.

He came by every Wednesday to check up on them and to receive a free meal from Lily, who to him was a master chef compared to wizard instant meals he fixed at home. He watched Lily and James fall deeper in love and fear. He also watched little Harry grow.

The years went by in trepidation and apprehension though they were underlined with a deep happiness that sometimes sprouted out at the oddest of times. The Potters watched their son mature with their hearts beating in hope that they could see him off on the Hogwarts train or better yet, manhood. They knew in the blackest part of their mind it was too much to wish for. People on Voldemort's hit list lived at best for three years before they were found and punctually killed. Though the days not spent in worry, were spent playing with little Harry, their only release.

When Harry was a year old, James taught him to ride a mini broom only three days after he had learned to walk. Harry zoomed around the house giggling until he flew straight into a vase and sliced his head open. After some fancy magic learnt from _The Household Guide to Healing Household Catastrophes_, Harry was giggling and playing with his toys as if nothing happened while James had been scolded and forced to sleep on the couch that night.

At the age of two, the anxious parents discovered their child was abnormally clumsy. After their monthly visit with Dumbledore, Harry was given a small pair of horn-rimmed glasses. Dumbledore, Lily, and James had shared a much-needed laugh when he ripped the bulky lens off and then walked straight into the coffee table. He put them back on again and could never be seen without them.

At the age of three, Harry had showed his first promise as a wizard. He stood on the top step of the stairs, as Lily was busy dusting, a nervous habit she had developed from being cooped up in the house day and night. She scarcely had time to look up when Harry howled delightfully. "I'm a broom!"

He leaped into the air and Lily gasped in horror. Though he didn't tumble down the stairs like she had feared, instead he floated, like a feather in a light breeze, to the bottom step where he landed gingerly. Lily had thought it was strange her son was exhibiting powers this early, but Dumbledore had declared solemnly that the very stress the household was squeezed under wringed Harry's raw talents out. James had never been more proud than he was at that moment.

But at the age of four, Harry had asked the question everyone had shuffled around and prayed he wouldn't.

"Who's Voldiemort?" Harry inquired one day Dumbledore made a visit. They had been talking gravely about the vile man and his latest movements over tea. Lily's cup rattled against it's saucer, James's eyes widened, making him look much like a bespectacled fish, and Dumbledore simply stared pensively down at Harry.

"He's a bad man Harry dear." Lily attempted to explain in her sweetest voice, though it shook hazardously like she might cry.

"He's a wicked, wicked man," James hissed, not staring at Harry, " who can scarcely be considered a man. He kills hordes of people who step in his way or simply walk down the street at the wrong time. He stops for no one, not even little boys like you. That's why you have to stay on the inside with mommy and daddy all the time. He's on the outside, waiting."

"James!" Lily screeched. "He's only four years old! He doesn't understand things like this. Do you want to give him nightmares again?"

"I will not have my child half-informed." He retorted defiantly. James looked to Dumbledore for encouragement, but his bright blue eyes were focused only on Harry.

"That's why I can't go out like Sean can?" Harry asked, glancing from his mother to his father. Sean McKinnon had been a playmate that had come over to the Potter's house while his mother and father had discussed the stifling caged lives Lily and James lived over dinner. He had asked why Harry couldn't go outside like he could. Harry had no answer for him and only said he couldn't. They had tried to sneak outside but the door handle had been to high for their tiny hands to reach. Lily had caught them and Harry was sent to his room with a good scolding. However, James had come up later to comfort Harry with two chocolate sundaes. Unfortunately, the Mckinnons family had been slaughtered three weeks later. The little boy frequently asked where his only friend was.

"Yes Harry." Dumbledore finally said in the silence that was as tedious as the house was. "That's why."

"So Sean's on the outside?" Harry questioned, his eyes bubbling with excitement. "Can we go see him Mummy? Daddy? Please, I'll be really careful and good and everything!"

This had been too much for Lily and she began to sob into James's robe. He held her, five years of a stressful home life completely absent from his embrace.

"Harry go to room, please."

At the age of five, with just weeks until he would become an orphan, Lily and James took Harry outside for the first time. They showed him the tall woods that masked their home from the others and the vivid wild flowers that sprouted all about; reminding Lily there was still hope. Harry was fascinated by it all, for he had never seen so much green about him. He played with the rocks and the grass and the bark on the trees. In fact, he found one tree that looked as if something hot had grazed it. It looked an awful lot like the scorch mark on the kitchen ceiling due to James's horrendous cooking skills. Harry gently rubbed the area and drew back immediately with a pain in his joints. He ran back to his parents, tripping over an odd red rock. It had felt like a snake had bitten him.

With just days before Halloween, Sirius became ill. It seemed it was a simple case of the sniffles, though it played a large part in the Potter's massacre.

"For god sakes Lily, it's just a case of the sniffles!" Sirius whined immaturely, wiping his nose on the sleeve of his robe absently.

" Sirius! You've been vomiting all day. You must go see a healer." Lily had snapped, bestowing him with the same scowl she gave to Harry when he didn't clean his plate.

"Just ate something funny that's all." He said, rubbing his belly gently like it was scarred flesh.

She rolled her eyes. " I wouldn't be surprised. But you remember our agreement. Oh be quiet, you know just as well as I do you're in no fit shape to even take on even Peter, let alone a trained Death Eater…"

And after a six hour row, Sirius was finally persuaded or either to sick to argue anymore. He reluctantly backed down from the secret keeper job. That very night the ceremony was re-preformed for the fourth time, and Peter walked outside the Potter's door, holding their lives in his grimy hands.

Even the night betrayed the Potters. The sky was the clearest it had been in ages, void of all clouds. The stars shimmered unto the secluded brick house, as if wishing it a bright future, smirking. All families in Grodic's Hollow were resting soundly in their beds including little Harry who was curled up snug beneath his blanket. He dreamed of fantastic places, not knowing that this would be the last time he would snuggle beneath his blanket a complete person.

Lily and James sat on their couch gazing at the stars, enjoying the way they seemed to wink down on them. Just glancing at them, they felt inflamed with a buoyant passion that Harry might not be the child of prophecy, but a child of theirs, and theirs alone. James held Lily against his firm chest and she listened to his heart beating in her ear, the rhythmic thump thump that always whispered his love, not knowing it would be only minutes before that heart would beat no more. They were as calm and as silent as the docile night, though un-denounced to them, a secret prowler unlocked the door with a muttered incantation.

Lily was the one to hear the lock click, a very unfamiliar and frightening noise she felt she had been waiting to heed for five years.  
"James!" She whispered urgently. "Did you hear that?"

The front door screeched open slowly and dauntless footsteps sounded from the foyer. James suddenly straightened up, more alert then he had ever been before. He fingered his sleek wand in his pocket.

"Is it him?" Lily whispered frantically, her heart thumping so agonizingly against her ribcage she felt it in her throat.

James and Lily then both felt the chills like someone had dumped ice water down their back, which was induced by the fall of a powerful charm, this one being a disillusionment spell Dumbledore had added for an extra precaution. The wards on the house fell with their hopes.

"Potter," a serpentine voice called in a low hiss. "I've come for you."

Lily gasped noisily and James clutched her wildly by the shoulders.

"Take Harry and go. I'll hold him off as long as I can." The boyish charm and immaturity was absent from his severe face.

"No, I can't- I can't leave you. You'll d-die."

"There's no time. _Go_!"

He kissed her cheek roughly and stepped into the kitchen, wand out and back straight. The diminutive glint in his eye was that of grief, fear, and anger, all of which he felt burning darkly inside him.

Lily nodded to the air and began to climb the stairs, two at a time. She tried her best to block out the muffled voices and rumbles from the spells, bouncing about her kitchen and possibly on her husband.

She sprinted down the hall her son had learned to walk in and her husband first kissed her in after the day Harry was born. She shook the memories out that tugged on her eyes to cry. She had to stay focused. She threw open Harry's door blusteringly, stirring the child immediately. He looked at her tear-drenched face cautiously.

"Mommy?" Harry asked at once. "What's wrong?"

She flipped on the light and smiled artificially down at him through her tears.

"Everything's okay, sweetie. But you have to get out of bed now." A thundering crash echoed from down the steps. "Hurry," she whispered directly.

"I don't understand."

"Just come on! Let's go. It's er, like a game Harry. Got to get out of bed fast." She said, grinning so wide she could taste her salty tears on her lips.

Harry complied and reached for his jacket next to his bed. Lily's heart began to beat frantically and spurts of adrenaline began shaking her as she heard the first step on the stairs creak under someone's weight. Lily, somewhere in her hysterical mind grieved, knowing it wasn't James.

"No time, Harry hurry!" She pulled him gently yet quickly out of bed, and wished she didn't have to let go. She cupped his face in her hands, a terrible grief slashing her heart in two. She kept smiling however, as the tears streamed with her inner anguish.

"Now listen carefully Harry. I want you to run into the woods and not stop. Don't stop for anything, damn it, not a thing."

"Will you come with me?"

"No, but I'll always be with you, I promise. I'll never let you go, you'll always be," her throat began to clog with suppressed sobs, "my little boy. I love you Harry, and I'm willing to prove just how much."

She picked him up gingerly, knowing it would be the last time she'd hold him. For five years she held this child and for five more she wished she could. She lifted him outside the window, his feet dangling in the air.

"Mommy I'm scarred!" Harry cried, jerking in her strong yet loving grip.

"It's okay." She breathed, sobbing hard. "Just run. Remember what you did on the stairs a long time ago? When you pretended you were a broom?"

Harry nodded absentmindedly, his attention on the dark ground far below him.

"I want you to pretend you're a broom again. Please, " she choked, " for me."

He nodded again, closed his eyes tightly and clenched his tiny fists.

" _One_…"

The cryptic feet had reached the hallway and they strolled slowly to the door. The creak in the hardwood floor seemed to echo through Lily's racing head.

"_Two_…" She didn't want to let go, oh god she didn't want to let go. She knew by releasing him, she'd never hold him again. She wanted to take him away, somehow take him away with her, wherever James was and pick up where they left off. She would take never leaving a house to never seeing her baby again. A tear bead slumped into her son's tangled black hair. With one last smell of his scent and squeeze from her hands, she cried through her constricted throat.

"_Three_!"

Harry felt the hands around his chest leave him and he plummeted, though his speed slowed and he began to drift downwards like he was a large sheet of paper. He crashed softly unto the ground, his pajamas now splattered with mud. He looked back up to his window, to the last memory he would retain of his mom. Her tears gleamed in the moonlight like diamonds as her cherry red hair spilled out over the ledge.

"I promise!" She cried out and then turned away.

It took years for Harry to figure out what she had promised. As he himself had promised, he sprinted into the woods as fast as his small legs would take him.

Lily had to work swiftly and quietly for her scheme to work. She stuffed the bed's blankets with Harry's pillow and jacket to look as if her child was still serenely asleep rather then running about a dark forest alone. She quickly retrieved a rag doll she gave to Harry on his second birthday. James had called it a pansy gift and disallowed his only son to play with it, but Lily had always snuck it into his arms before he went to sleep. She shook her head, swabbing the tears away on her sleeve. She _had_ to stay focused. With a fancy bit of charms work, she turned the hair on its linen head from candy apple red, to midnight black. She stuck its face down halfway beneath the covers. She left the dark strands of hair out to deceive the dark lord, something absolutely foolish and what only a dead woman would try.

And just as she finished, a voice hissed behind her like a venomous snake.

"_Lily Potter_."

She didn't even hear the door creak open. She turned around slowly to see a lean man clad in an extensive ebony robe. His gaunt chalky white face exposed a pleased smirk and his crimson eyes danced with a dangerous power Lily instantaneously feared. Her eyes shot from the glowing orbs to the outstretched wand, which was pointed directly at her chest.

"Silly girl, are you trying to protect your marked son?" His eyes seemed to flash perilously in the lamplight. "Only one needs to die tonight and that is the boy behind you."

"I won't let you!" She yelled boldly, glaring bravely or possibly stupidly into his ghastly face.

"You won't let me?" He replied, the sarcasm rolling off his high-pitched voice. "I believe either way, with you dead or alive, I will kill your boy."

Lily closed her eyes, knowing exactly what she must do. She had to relinquish her pride and her life to forever protect her son and give him the chance to live, even if it was without her. She drew in a sharp breath and drooped to the ground on her knees. When her eyes unfastened again, there were tears sparkling wretchedly in them, amplifying the jade to look like the green forest in May.

"Please!" She wailed, her whole body convulsing with sobs. "I beg you! Don't take Harry; don't take my little boy. Take me instead!"

"Stand aside you wretched sniveling girl!"

"No!" She wept, gripping the hem to his robes. "Please! Kill me instead of Harry! He needs a chance to live! He's so young—So very young. So take me. Take me in place of him and let him live! Please!"

Voldemort's polished wand was directed at her temple. She swallowed, her thoughts only on Harry's safety and not on death and her fears.

"You needn't die, foolish woman."

Green light enveloped the room and Voldemort was left to step over the limp body. He reached forward with his pale spider like hands and retched the blanket off Harry's bed. What he found made him wish he had kept the lament woman alive, just to torture her for her insolence and deception. Though he felt a light breeze on his neck and circled around to see the window was open with the curtains fluttering about as if trapped in-between gravity. He bent out the ledge, sneering to see small footprints that led straight into the shady forest.

"I'm coming for you Potter. You can't run forever like the child you are." He rushed out of the room, his cloak billowing ominously after him.

If Voldemort had halted for one moment to stare down at Lily, he would've been wary of going after Harry so swiftly. Her thick florid hair fell in graceful shimmering clumps, like strands of pure ruby. Her green eyes had glassed over, and they now shined like marbles with the tears that had yet to dry. But on her full lips, was a smile. Not a deceiving smirk, not a fearful leer, not even a lunatic grin, but a loving smile of a mother who was holding her child in her arms.

**

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Author's Rant: **You have no idea how long that took! I started this whole Doris thing in September and it's like what, March? Crap. I hope that made you cry, cause it made me cry just writing it. If you didn't cry, you're totally an insensitive prune. Ha, or you just skimmed over most the story like I would've done. I know the first half seems boring, but I had no other way to bring out the story. I hope you enjoyed this; more will be coming soon if people liked it. I swear there is a larger plot to this, one that mostly involves Sirius. I hope you guys liked this. Please review! Please please please! I really need some reassurance on this story on whether to continue. I'm really hesitant to even post it. I don't know who'd read it per say, but I hope somebody will. I'll reply to you I swear. 

With some love and a box of band-aids half-used,

_Freckled_.


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